Field Trips, Last Day of School, Birthday Party

Jack guilted me so much about not having volunteered w her school, but I don't have childcare since I'm home with Hilly and Ben, so it really wasn't possible.  I finally felt like the art museum trip was something I could do since Hilly and Ben were done school and my friend Lisa offered to watch Ben.  I knew Hilly would behave.

Jack's classmates couldn't have been more kind to Hilly. 

They looked at artwork for 1.5 hours and then had a half hour where they made their own landscapes.  That's pretty intense for 1st grade, but they all were really well behaved.  Hilly even contributed to the discussions on the paintings.

Next we grabbed Ben and hit up the mall for Jack's Jojo bow for the talent show.  Hills needed her pic taken outside Claire's obvi.  She also tried mall Chinese food for the first time and LOVED it.

Ben has recently been a stage 5 clinger.  He's afraid to walk around the house alone.  Monsters, duh.  So he won't go find a sibling or Jim unless he knows exactly where they are located.  And if I'm wrong- he gets SO MAD.  I googled this phenomenon because last week I was pretty overwhelmed with life- along w the last week of school stuff for Jack, we had our countertops ripped out in preparation for our new ones and also our gas fireplace put in in our bedroom, so there's just been a lot of coordinating.  Anyway, it said a death, a move, or a new baby can make clinging by little kids really bad.  Well, we have all 3 in the book, so I gotta cut this little dude some slack.

Jack's teacher sent me this- she won an award for super leader.

I don't have talent show footage I can upload here, but the girls did awesome.  Then I volunteered again to scoop water ice at the end of the year party.  It was really organized and fun for the kids and I love getting to know Jack's classmates, etc... I had Hilly and Ben with me so by the end of this party, they were filthy, bellies full of popcorn, water ice and hot dogs and had been jumping in the moonbounce for hours. We were all barely able to move, we were so exhausted.

I wasn't able to pick up Jack right away bc she had speech.  Her lisp is almost completely gone.  I'm going to work with her over the summer to make the proper pronunciations of her "s"'s a habit- the SLP said to have her use a straw to drink when I remember (which I have remembered approximately zero times, although I did buy straws and Hilly drinks from them constantly.  Ironically, Hilly is my only child WITHOUT a lisp). Anyway, they said her progress was rapid-fire, so she should be lisp free soon.  She is going to miss speech therapy.  She loves it. 

So Ben watched the fireplace guys install the fireplace for hours.  At one point the dude shot him with an air compressor and Ben got super excited and ran to get all his weapons.  They must have had some sort of conversation I missed because he said to Ben at the end "Not a bad fight for a 3 and a half year old."  Ben tells everyone he's 3.5.

This is Jack's class at their finale for talent show- I stole from my friend Kristin's Instagram because I was sitting in the back w Ben and Hilly and we were at code red at that moment! It was a totally heartwarming and incredible show, though.  Jack's teacher runs it so most of the first grade performs.

This is Ben casually paging through a Barbie sticker book.  He's a multi-faceted man.

Our red countertops were ripped out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And I'm pretty much finished painting the cabinets and I love the way they look.

The last day of school there was a good-bye party for Thomas at the pizza place and then Jack hung w her friend Evelyn.  After the kids played, I realized I had a craving for Rita's and I figured it would be special since it was the last day of school.  3 mint chocolate chips and a blue raspberry.  Benny likes the blue.  But not the cotton candy.

Yesterday Hilly made an American flag necklace among many other crafts.

We attended Hannie's birthday party and the kids had a freaking blast.  We were there for over 4 hours and the kids bounced pretty much the entire time.  Actually, I think it took Ben awhile to warm up, as it usually does when a bounce house is involved.

The birthday gal.

After-party.  The kids were so serious about playing pirates and villagers.

Hahaha, look at their facial expressions.